by David Korzinski | October 2, 2020 10:14 am
Donald Trump has spent much of 2020 insisting the novel coronavirus would disappear. Instead it has found a comfortable home in his lungs. The news is at once remarkable and utterly ordinary. He now joins more than seven million Americans infected with a highly contagious virus. Despite the tragedy of more than 200,000 deaths from COVID-19 in that country, most have recovered. I wish the same for the U.S. president.
The coming days will be a time for speculation around what this development means for the remaining month of the American election campaign. I can’t but help reflect as well on the impact of Trump – and the things he says and does – on Canadian public opinion and behaviour.
Much is often made of how people on this side of the border dislike him[1]. Less scrutinized is the way his worldview has moved and intensified Canadian opinion. Not long after he was sworn in as president, one-quarter of the people in this country said they supported a Trump-style travel ban[2] barring Syrian refugees. And it is ironic that while the first prime minister to seriously champion climate issues in Canada was Conservative Brian Mulroney, since Trump’s election, only about one-third[3] of modern Conservative voters in this country believe that climate change is real and human caused.
There is little doubt in my mind that he has also had a significant impact on the way many Canadians view the seriousness of and reaction to COVID-19 in their own country. That said, on one key issue, we’ve tuned him out.
For the rest of this piece, please view it on the Ottawa Citizen’s site[4] where it was initially published.
Source URL: https://angusreid.org/kurl-lets-hope-trumps-fanciful-thinking-on-science-doesnt-resonate-in-canada/
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